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In this video we will be looking at the works going on at Unionville Station in Markham’s South.
Unionville is a regional rail station at the moment which has semi frequent peak
hour services in the peak direction and hourly off peak service on the GO Stouffville Line.
Unionville is one stop North of Milliken on the line.
Much like with Kennedy, Agincourt, and Milliken, Unionville Station
is going from a very basic single track single platform affair with very spartan amenities,
to a proper regional rail station. In addition, unlike at the other
stations we’ve covered on the Stouffville Line, Unionville will actually have three
tracks and platforms as it will serve as the terminus for frequent bi directional services.
Unfortunately, Unionville is really a poorly thought out station in my opinion.
First its access is primarily via car, and yet GO is somewhat oddly not improving that
aspect of station access with a parking garage, given the stations proximity to highway 407,
this might actually be one of the few places where that would make sense.
In addition, despite having a lot of transit connections on paper Unionville suffers from
YRT’s irregular scheduling so buses are often run on unusual headways and service is not great.
The final nail in the coffin is the pedestrian access,
there's actually a decent amount of density to the West of Unionville station in Downtown Markham,
however pedestrian connections are illogical and make the walk highly circuitous. Plans seem to be
to improve the connection when development finally comes east but it's still questionable at best.
Approaching the platforms once again the large canopy really enhances the station's presence,
I really think a big GO sign near the 407 would be wise too.
We can also see our new Presto readers adjacent to the platform access points - nice!
Now looking at the rebuild work we can see that as with the other stations on the line a brand
new canopy over the original platform and future northbound platform is now visible, though as
you’ve probably come to expect a temporary wooden platform is being used with one of the new tracks.
Across the track you can also see the wide future island platform,
I think it's important to the width out as well as the straight edges as this is not something
that exists in many places on the network, including a few stations down at Agincourt.
I think it looks nice! On the far side of the island will be a turnaround track
which will aid in the operations of frequent services to the south.
Looking at it more it's clear the original platform is really far along. It should be
noted that all the new platforms have integrated snowmelt systems as well , we can also see some
vertical access and utilities on the island platform and Downtown Markham in the distance.
Part of the project is adding formal pedestrian paths through the parking lot as well as a bike
room however once again pedestrian access to the under construction station is pretty poor.
I understand that drivers are basically always GO’s number
one priority at the moment given the breakdown of how people get to stations
via each mode, but this really needs to change.
I’d also add that in terms of making parking lots pedestrian friendly I don’t think the
plans go far enough. The speeds people drive at in these lots are often crazy and the lack of
substantially more protective measures like trees and curbs as well as speed bumps concerns me.
I know this probably all sounds quite critical but I think these are all key things to point out if
GO is ever going to get around to fixing them and capturing the critical non-driver market!
I will say it perplexes me to this day that these station upgrades are not incorporating
level boarding for trains, this seems like a pretty big waste if stations are going to
be upgraded soon which they should be because level boarding is a common sense improvement.
We already have a standard height to use based on the accessible platform height,
and surely whatever rolling stock operates on RER can be made to have appropriate floor heights.
Once again, I do love seeing stations getting rebuilt across the region.
Despite my criticisms, the stations are mostly getting a lot right, they are vastly improving
capacity and weather protection and making the stations visually really attractive. With this we
have covered all the Stouffville Line stations and while we will return when work is substantially
further ahead we’re going to spend time in further videos exploring other GO lines and projects!
Stay tuned to the channel for more Building Toronto’s Regional Rail, and as always good night!